From the Pastor’s Desk:
Congratulations to Rocco Michael Costello, son of Richard and Emily Costello, who was baptized on October 25, at Notre Dame Church!
During this month of November, also let us pray for priests who are not currently in active ministry (this includes also being on leave): Fr. Ross Miceli, Fr. David Whiteford, Fr. Sean Kerins, Fr. Matt Strickenberger, and Fr. Chris Wheeler.
We also remember our “recently” deceased clergy from the Shenango Valley: Fr. John Hindman (2026), Msgr. Casimir Bogniak (2025), Msgr. Bob Malene (2024), Fr. Henry Andrae (2023), Fr. Matt Ruyechan (2023), Fr. Don Berdis (2018), Msgr. Ed Zeitler (2017), Msgr. Salvatore Mitchell (2016), Fr. John Lynch (2013), & Msgr. Robert Schriefer (2008)- may their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
On Oct. 31, the 5 “Georgia Martyrs” were beatified in Savannah, Georgia! Daniel Gallagher, writing for The Catholic Thing, published the following on Oct. 31, 2026. Here is the article:
The Georgia Martyrs: Dying for the Sanctity of Marriage
After two years of preaching the Gospel to the Guale people along the coast of modern-day Georgia, Friar Pedro de Corpa had much to be thankful for. Unlike other missionaries, he didn’t need a military escort, for he was welcomed peacefully by the natives. He walked among them barefoot, learned their language, and enjoyed greater success than the Jesuits who had preceded him. The Guale even helped him build two mission settlements known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato and Santa Catalina de Guale.
Among the newly baptized was the presumed heir to the chiefdom, Juanillo. After marrying a woman sacramentally in the Church, Juanillo took another wife. Friar Pedro’s public rebuke provoked Juanillo to organize an uprising in 1597. On September 14– the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross – Juanillo gathered a band of tribal warriors and bludgeoned Friar Pedro as he was preparing for Mass. The jubilant war party then severed the friar’s head and raised it high on a pike for all to see.
Today’s Beatification of Friar Pedro and four other Spanish Franciscans in Savannah will be the first in the American South. Bishop Stephen Parkes highlights the significance of honoring men who shed their blood not only for Christ but “for the sanctity of marriage,” adding that “we need to continue to promote marriage and family life as a priority for our country, for our communities, for our society.”
The message of the “Georgia Martyrs” is clear: marriage is worth dying for. The only way to promote peaceful coexistence is to defend marriage, even if it costs your life.
It doesn’t take a deep dive into Christian history to see how central this has always been to the preaching of the Gospel. Early martyrology shows that dying for Christ was often the act of an entire family.
After Saint Getulius was martyred around 120 AD, his wife Symphorosa refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. Her disobedience to the emperor’s command cost not only her life but those of her seven sons. A similar story is told of Saint Felicity who died in Rome around 165 AD. The concept of a “domestic church” was virtually indistinguishable from that of the family.
“The family,” Pope Benedict XVI taught, “is the domestic Church and must be the first school of prayer. It is in the family that children. . .learn to perceive the meaning of God” and “live in an atmosphere marked by God’s presence.”
The message of the Georgia martyrs is integrally tied to that of the early Roman martyrs. The first step to creating “an atmosphere marked by God’s presence” is the mutual promise of one man and one woman to “be faithful,” “to love,” and “to honor” each other “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.” If it doesn’t start there, it won’t lead to the heroic witness of a Saint Symphorosa or Blessed Pedro.
The beatification of the five Spanish martyrs is a magnificent reminder that marriage is worth dying for. If we think we’ll never be called to shed blood to defend Christian marriage, we have only to recall how quickly the tables turned on Friar Pedro and his companions.
Hardly anyone foresaw how serious the crisis would be running up to and following the promulgation of Humanae Vitae in 1968. The turmoil surrounding the formulation of magisterial teaching on artificial conception caused Saint Paul VI intense suffering, and it is providential that both miracles leading to his 2018 canonization had to do with the miraculous healing of prenatal life: one in California, the other in Verona.
Saint Paul VI’s heavenly intercession is no surprise given his relentless mission to promote marriage and family with remarkable vigor while still on earth. “Every attack on the fundamental value of the family,” he preached in 1969, “meaning eroticism or violence, the defense of divorce or of antisocial attitudes among young people – is an attack on the true good of man.”
His words reveal that the polygamy opposed by Friar Pedro and his companions only marks the tip of an iceberg that includes layers of abortion, artificial birth control, same-sex unions, and in-vitro fertilization.
In an interview earlier this year, the former president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, explained that he had made drastic changes to the Institute due to what he perceived as its preoccupation with “abstract moral norms” and its lack of an “interdisciplinary” approach.
The blood shed by Friar Pedro and companions demonstrates that “abstract moral norms” and “interdisciplinary focus” are the least of our worries. Ironically, Archbishop Paglia’s complaints are typical of the very ad intra obsession decried by Pope Francis. Teaching, defending, and living out the fundamental truths of marriage and family are the real concern, and initial success never guarantees smooth sailing in the future.
On May 13, 1981 – the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima – John Paul II climbed into the popemobile to make his way to the dais in Saint Peter’s Square for his weekly General Audience. He was particularly excited because he was about to announce the founding of a new institute dedicated to the study of marriage and family. That excitement was cut short by four bullets fired at point-blank range by Mehmet Ali Ağca, one of which nearly killed the pontiff. Instead of celebrating the establishment of the new institute, John Paul was fighting for his life at Gemelli Hospital.
Saint John Paul never hesitated to connect both Our Lady and his plans to announce the Institute for Marriage and Family to the assassination attempt that day. By God’s grace, he survived to see those plans through, teaching us that marriage and family are no appendage to the Gospel, but stand at its very core.
Few things are worth dying for in this life, but marriage and family are certainly among them.
St. Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church who taught St. Thomas Aquinas and who wrote a compendium of all knowledge: natural science, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics, and metaphysics, pray for us.
Father Miller